Chipmaker claims the four-fab site could expand US-based DRAM production by a factor of 12

Micron broke snowy winter ground in New York on Friday to begin building a chip fab that promises to bring up to 50,000 jobs and much-needed computer memory production to US shores, as the AI boom continues to push memory prices up.

The company’s stock surged on the news that shovels had been put to work on the facility first announced in 2022, which had been bedeviled by environmental delays.

The megafab - which would displace 500 acres of woods and wetlands, as well as two endangered species of bats - is scheduled to begin producing DRAM chips by 2030.

Micron said it will create 1,216 acres of off-site bat habitat including maternity roosts to mitigate the potential damage its fab will cause to the Indiana and northern long-eared bat populations, as well as 628 acres of land to offset impacts to the sedge wren, short-eared owl, and northern ...